In the United States, when an interest in real property is transferred, documents evidencing the transfer typically are recorded with a local recording entity. Other jurisdictions outside the United States also follow this practice. As such, a future grantee of an interest in the same real property may determine whether his grantor actually owns what he is attempting to transfer.
Title companies are frequently engaged by grantees, mortgagees, and the like (i.e., anyone receiving an interest in real property) to insure the quality of title being transferred. To do so, the title company typically examines the “chain of title” to the property interest begin transferred to determine its status and/or quality. Based on what it finds, a title company may issue a title policy that insures the transfer. In most cases, the policy includes conditions that are determined by events related to previous transfers of the property.
Determining how to properly condition a title policy may be a laborious task. It generally requires that a title examiner locate and inspect each recorded document in a parcel's chain of title, at least back to a certain point in time. This is complicated by the fact that most recording jurisdictions do not provide electronic searching systems. While an electronic index may assist an examiner to locate documents, the index does not include all the relevant information needed to underwrite the policy. Hence, the title examiner typically must look at each document or an image thereof. Given the extremely time consuming task of examining property records, it would be helpful to have more robust electronic property record search systems. Of course, title companies and title examiners are not the only entities that desire such systems.
Several entities have attempted to create electronic “title plants” that give title examiners, abstractors, and others the ability to quickly, efficiently, and accurately search recorded property records. Investing the effort to create a title plant is generally a tradeoff between the expected income and the cost of creating it for a given jurisdiction. Hence, efficient processes are needed to extract valid data from recorded property records and verify the accuracy of the extracted data.